


just to see what it feels like to fly

by rocksafella



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: GTA AU, It's canon typical though, M/M, Multi, Trans Character, Violence, but it starts real slow, shitty parents, sorry pals, this will eventually be ot7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 03:02:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10778145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocksafella/pseuds/rocksafella
Summary: At first his humanity struggled to keep up with the weird ache in the pit of his chest. These were people, these people were someone’s sons or daughters at some point. By the time Michael finished with them they were just meat, if even that.There was nothing poetic about the work Michael did but he liked to think it was justified. From what the mechanics told him Ramsey was some piece of work. They made him out to be someone with a God complex, doing as he pleased with no thought to who it might affect. Michael also learned over time that it wasn't just Ramsey but a whole group. He only ever got code names but it was enough to spark some kind of intrigue.Michael forced stories from behind bloodied teeth.





	1. when you told me

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't my first fic but it's def the first one I'm posting? Basically after realizing there's nothing stopping him from doing anything ever, no actual box anyone can fit him in, Michael winds up working for some crooked mechanics. He winds up on Geoff Ramsey's watch list and the idea of a bit of a waltz is interesting enough to entertain after learning a bit more about the fakes.
> 
> This isn't really beta'd or anything and I'm unsure enough about it to be wary posting it but if I don't it's really just going to sit in my drafts forever. I'm hyperaware it doesn't always stick with a specific writing style but I think for the most part.. it works in my favor lol
> 
> relationships to be added + tags will be updated if they need to be and all. 
> 
> I'm over at macheenima.tumblr, come say hi

Michael had been driving for hours. Maybe days, though it was unlikely- it just felt like it’d been so long. His eyes were blurry, he’d cried himself raw, nothing mattered much beyond the stretched out highway. He knew he was far over the legal speed limit, careening down the road at upwards of a hundred miles an hour.

The thing about all of it, the white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, the empty fast food bags in the passenger seat, the way everything felt turned upside down- the thing about all of it is that it doesn’t _matter_. None of it matters. He gets far out of Jersey before he ends up having to pull over, somewhere between one civilization and the next. It’s so late out that he doubts anybody will drive by but he’s past the point of worrying about people seeing him like this.

Michael spilled out of his car, sound catching in his throat somewhere between a sob and a curse. He picked up the pop can that tumbled out with him, still half full, the flat warm liquid dribbling over his hand. Without thinking he hurled it out into the badlands, out into the empty farmer’s fields. With the liquid adding momentum to it the can sails far, landing with a muted puff in the dusty dirt a long way away. The wail that tears itself out of his throat after is half scream half war cry, body torn between fight and flight. 

He cried while he leaned against the hot metal hood of his car, the engine still turning over underneath the backs of his legs. He shouldn’t have left it running, he didn’t bring much money with him, but that idea faded into the back of his brain. Michael cried so hard he felt like he might throw up, acid collecting at the bottom of his throat trying to claw its way up under his tongue.

There was nothing ahead of him. There was nothing behind him either, nothing to go back to. After a life spent trying to contain himself and fit into the space that had been carved out for him he doesn’t know how to reign in his emotions now that they’ve burst through their little jar. He’d spent so long bottling it up for everyone else’s sake that now that its all got a hold on him he doesn’t know what to do. 

Michael spent a long time crying, going from violent to weepy to sniffles slowly over time. He held himself, arms around his ribcage. Eventually he slipped his hands into his hoodie pocket and just breathed. It’d turned from very late at night to very early the next day and the sun seemed like it was just beginning to edge over the horizon. Michael took inventory of himself, of anything achy or sore, eliminates things caused by his crying and comes up with the list of hunger, exhaustion and dehydration. He can fix all of those though.

What he couldn’t fix is the fact that he had no money, no ID of any kind, a very questionable vehicle and nowhere to flee to. Not to mention nobody to go to either. It’s cold, he’s exhausted but there’s no use in staying on the side of the road for the night. It’d be smarter to find a truck stop or a gas station and sleep in the car there where there were other people. Climbing back into the car, head on the steering wheel, Michael promised to himself he wouldn’t let anybody do that ever again. He wouldn’t let anyone control him and dictate what boxes he belonged in. 

When Michael makes it to a truckstop a few hours later the sun was creeping into the sky and his eyes hurt from being open so long after crying like he had. Maybe people could manipulate someone who cared but he decided he didn't anymore- survival of the fittest, he had nobody to worry about but himself. 

\------

The thing about controlling parents is they always have a breaking point. Michael’s parents had always been aggressively firm on the idea that Michael had to go to university. They didn’t care if it was for law or medicine but it had to be something in those categories. They’d groomed him from the beginning, extra assignments and tutors and hours spent studying. God forbid he ever came home with anything less than an A. 

They’d ignored him at every turn when he’d tried to come out, too. They’d always insisted to anyone who asked that their daughter was just going through a phase. It’s popular on the internet you know, they’d insist- teenagers trying to get attention by insisting on this _trans_ nonsense. Our daughter won’t be like that. 

It reached a head a month from graduation. Michael had envisioned them being angry when he came home with his hair lopped off, dresses gone, exchanged for jeans he’d bought at the thrift store and a shirt he’d inherited from a school friend. He’d known they’d be upset when he told them he didn’t want to go to college, he wanted to take a trade.

Michael just hadn’t known how angry.

They’d shouted him out of the house, the door slamming harshly in his face. Of course they’d verbally ripped him apart, stripped him down to the melody of _you’ll never be anything more than a mistake, look at everything we did for you, how could you_ over and over.

So he’d just driven. He pulled out of the driveway intending to just cool off, suppress everything and come back ready to conform again but something had pulled him down the highway and then cooling off had become screaming, screaming had become sobbing at a hundred miles or more down the freeway at almost two in the morning without the intent to stop at all.

The thing about growing up with parents like that is the abuse went so unnoticed for so long. Michael grew up desperately needing their praise and approval, to hear everything they’d said after so long needing the opposite had been more than necessary to jar him into realizing there was no point. There was no point in pleasing them- as long as he stayed there he’d never be good enough for any of them. He couldn't be their perfect daughter so why stick around and fool himself into thinking otherwise.

 

\------

He rolled into Los Santos two and a half weeks later. Michael picked up odd jobs along the way and it left him with enough cash left over for a meal and a new jacket. His jeans are shredded at the knees and his shirt was white at one point, but by now it’d become a mottled black-grey. His hair was so greasy the little auburn curls struggled to keep their shape. Michael might have been bathing himself in cheap cologne sprays for a week but he knows the smell of _ode de lack of hygene_ seeps through anyway.

He was disgusting and he was well aware. He was also more than desperate for any kind of work. It takes some effort and timing and way too much lying, but he managed to score a mechanic position with a shitty garage on the edge of the town. He knew it was probably more dangerous than it let on and all the guys were twice his size but he refused to bend under the looks they gave him. It wound up working in his favor and they provide him with a jumpsuit and a shitty apartment that might as well be a closet.

He was paid ‘under the table’- meaning he wasn't on their official payroll and if anybody looked into him he wouldn’t really exist. Michael didn't mind getting paid job by job though, there wasn't really a shortage of cars to tune and each one earned him a pretty fat wad of cash. It helped that after he settled in the mechanics were like a twisted family- or more accurately a security pack. 

It wasn't much but it was enough to start buying himself some things, new clothes and things to hide his soft face. His voice wasn't much of an issue and as long as he kept his hair short and kind of clean, he passed for masculine enough to get by. 

He eventually sold his car, too. He didn’t get much for it but he got more than he knew it was worth. He started putting money away in a box under his bed, saving for- something. He wasn't sure of what for now but he knew it’ll be important later. If one thing he'd learned as a child prodigy it was that saving money as early as possible saved you the anxiety of being short rent or grocery money

\------

Michael’s working at the shop almost two months when he’s finally let on to what the back rooms are. Interrogation, torture (mild as they said it was), whatever they need was done back there. They only asked him to clean it and Michael knew he couldn't turn it down. He assumed, anyway, considering this is very _very_ illegal and they'd just let him on to the trick.

He accepted regardless. There’s extra money and as long as he stayed out of their way he wouldn't end up as another blood spatter for someone else to clean. Michael actually ended up learning a fair amount and he figured it was useful in a city like LS anyway. Covering your tracks wasn't an art many bother to learn.

He did it for a while, cleaning up stains and other unmentionables, when he was eventually asked if he’d like to sit in on an actual session. Some low level punk, dealer for a supplier running under some guy named Ramsey. Michael accepted, macabre as the thought was. He justified it by telling himself that the more he does for them the more they’d be willing to do for him and the less he showed up on their radar.

It turned out he did himself a favor in the process. However much they pay him to clean up from the jobs they’re eager to pay him more to do them himself. Michael knew it’s because if they ever needed to they could get rid of him and nobody would ever know or care. 

In the span of two weeks he rips through three goons.

At first his humanity struggled to keep up with the weird ache in the pit of his chest. These were people, these people were someone’s sons or daughters at some point. By the time Michael finished with them they were just meat, if even that.

The first time he killed one of them the reality of what he had done didn't hit him until he was laying in bed at night alone. He didn't cry or get upset but instead he spent a long, long time looking at his hands, watching how the tendons flexed under his skin. These hands had ended someone’s life without even meaning to and the worst part about it was he hadn’t felt any guilt. Not even now, not even after he’d processed it. It hadn’t felt good but it wasn’t a feeling he'd regret getting used to.

There was nothing poetic about the work Michael did but he liked to think it was justified. From what the mechanics told him Ramsey was some piece of work. They made him out to be someone with a God complex, doing as he pleased with no thought to who it might affect. Michael also learned over time that it wasn't just Ramsey but a whole group. He only ever got code names but it was enough to spark some kind of intrigue. 

Michael forced stories from behind bloodied teeth. Stories about Narvaez, a sniper, someone everyone is sure is only a ghost but the bodies make them question the idea. Dooley, king of anything technological, ripping security systems apart or slipping by them like a whisper all without trying. Ramsey’s golden boy Free, his imported son, who’s somehow a million different people all in one day. 

Then there’s Pattillo. Michael worries a little about her. She’s nothing like Ramsey, she cares about the ripples he causes and about their low level goons. Michael hears a few small stories that involve her having to repair the damage Ramsey leaves behind. He also heard that she flew a plane like it was just an extension of her consciousness.

The one Michael knows the least about ends up being the Vagabond. Everyone has different stories and some of them seem so fantastic and gruesome Michael has trouble taking any of it seriously. The one thing that doesn’t vary between stories is the mask, a terrifying skull with too-blue eyes resting in the sockets

Of course he heard a few mentions of a B team, the ones who kept all the strings together for Ramsey. They seemed to have the biggest hand in supply and demand, monitoring the streets and gang activity. 

The fakes all end up seeming a bit unreal. It also seems like nobody has any real information about them, just stories or promises that if something happens to them there’s going to be hell. It never comes, though, and the words are truly as empty as Michael anticipates.  
Michael thinks this as he goes through almost four poor saps in one week up to the point that he comes home and his apartment is trashed. His clothes are everywhere, all his food spoiled by a fridge door left open.  
All of this is overshadowed by the fact that when he runs to his tiny room the bed is overturned and all his money is gone. All of it. Michael rips through his home a second time looking for anything that might tell him where it is and all he finds instead is a cryptic note.

The handwriting is neat and the long and short of it is that Michael better keep his nose out of places it doesn’t belong. He’s the reason Ramsey is choosing to blame all his missing street dealers on and that isn’t a good thing. At the very end of the note is a signature and an addendum: if Ramsey hears another whisper of Michael’s name it won’t be the cash they take this time, it’ll be his fucking life.

 

For a long, long moment, Michael is stuck standing there with the note held in his hands. He knows he shouldn’t be interested, he knows he shouldn’t wonder how they found out it was him specifically or how they found his rat hole apartment. Michael knows he should be terrified he did it at all.

Instead he snorts, a mean sound in the back of his throat. He folds the note up, puts it in his dresser. Rights his room, fixes the rest of the house. Michael cleans out his fridge and sweeps up all the bits of cracked plate.

If Michael were smart he’d run. He’d take this for the warning it was and get the fuck out of dodge. Instead he wants Ramsey to do whatever he plans to do. If a big time boss like him puts the effort into finding a small fry like Michael he’s either very bored or very interested in him. Either way, the boy has nothing to lose- nobody’s going to miss him and there’s obviously nothing he’s holding onto.

\-------

The next time Michael makes a little dealer scream out answers he does it with a purpose. This one won’t die. He’ll let them writhe and stress themselves out to a point of unconsciousness, take whatever info he gets out of it to the mechanics and dump the goon somewhere they won’t be snuffed out. He wants them to tattle, tell Ramsey that thorn in his side didn’t quit yet. It was basically like dousing himself in gasoline just to end up dancing around a bonfire but Michael likes the little thrill. The fakes don’t fuck around, he’s heard that a thousand times. Michael wants to see if it was really true.

When he goes home to his tiny apartment that night he thinks about what a different person he’d become. If you’d asked him where he saw himself in about seven months Michael would have habitually told you university. Obediently informed you either law, medicine or both. Broke, under threat from someone with control over half the states, having had a hand in several unfortunate deaths- that reality wouldn’t have even been one of Michael’s thoughts. 

As he laid down on his mattress with a threadbare blanket thrown over himself he knew it didn’t matter. Anything this far from his parent’s ideal was perfect. Not to mention there was something alive about existing purely from one day to the next. It was exhausting, tedious and even a little irritating but it was such a change from the life he’d had picked out for him. Besides, every time Michael felt a knife sink into a wailing stranger or bone give under one of his fists something in his chest finally shook loose. 

The only thing left to do was wait to see if Ramsey would return the invitation and Michael had to force himself to sleep to get over the anticipation.


	2. you were leaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael comes to work on a Sunday fully expecting an easy day. The shop has been quiet, the manager, a big guy everyone only referred to as ‘Ron’, hadn’t asked Michael on any jobs lately. Michael wouldn’t classify his feelings as boredom because normal people don’t get entertainment out of _harming other people_ but it was in the same vein. He still had cars to work on though, his chore list mostly consisting of tire changes or worn down engine belts.
> 
> His expectations are dashed the second he steps foot in the garage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is 3,767 words of staying up past 4 in the morning because I was actually just that eager to get this second chapter out there. Updates won't always happen like this! Super sorry. So far I've been motivated purely by your kind words and encouragements so thank you SO much! it really means a lot to me!
> 
> there's no real warnings for this chapter beyond smoking, if that makes you uncomfortable. it's mostly lots of worldbuilding! so without stalling anymore, i give you ch. 2!

Nothing happens.

At first Michael is pissed off about it. He put effort into his last few jobs, even more-so than usual and took some care to make sure they didn’t die. Not right away, anyway. As far as he knew they all made it to Ramsey in one piece.

Apparently the man loses interest fast though, which is.. Michael didn’t want to say it was disappointing but it kind of was. He’d come close to gaining some big wig’s full attention and lost it all in the same breath. The feeling of disappointment is gone by the weekend but the idea that it was there to begin with almost concerned Michael enough to actually examine _why_ he felt the way he did.

He didn’t though, choosing to ignore it yet again. It could easily be chalked up to having an attention complex anyway, there was no need to look too far into something insignificant.

\------

Michael comes to work on a Sunday fully expecting an easy day. The shop has been quiet, the manager, a big guy everyone only referred to as ‘Ron’, hadn’t asked Michael on any jobs lately. Michael wouldn’t classify his feelings as boredom because normal people don’t get entertainment out of _harming other people_ but it was in the same vein. He still had cars to work on though, his chore list mostly consisting of tire changes or worn down engine belts.

His expectations are dashed the second he steps foot in the garage. Ron, a smaller man Michael thinks is named Marco and someone Michael doesn’t know are all standing by the lifts towards the back of the giant room. Ron catches Michael’s eye and something in the grin that splits his face puts Michael on edge. Ron waves him over and Michael goes, however unwilling, dropping his backpack by the front desk to collect later.

“Here he is!” Ron crows, dragging Michael in by one shoulder to stand in their huddle. “This is the boy I was telling you about. Ain’t been ‘round long but he’s not half bad.” Ron gestures from Michael to the stranger and belatedly, Michael realizes he’s probably supposed to greet him. The guy isn’t intimidating at all and even looks out of place. Sandy wisps of hair peek out from under a stretched out beanie, his shirt looks vintage-worn and his pants are absolutely _dad jeans_ , if Michael didn’t know to think twice he’d assume this guy was a lost suburban parent. He holds his hand out to shake like he’s seen the other mechanics do and is surprised to find that the man has a gentle grip. He doesn’t introduce himself which throws Michael for a bit of a curve but the answer as to why is clear after a moment- he can’t. Instead, someone else comes jogging in to butt himself into their huddle. He greets Michael enthusiastically and introduces himself as Mr. Smith. “That’s Mr. DeWitt,” Smith explains. The man is tiny, just a few inches shorter than Michael- who was already short by anyone’s standards. His facial hair could really only be considered scruff and Michael thinks he might be colorblind, his pants are a horrible orange and his grape-purple shirt doesn’t help. 

Smith and DeWitt explain that they have a very old, very testy car that’s been acting up for the past week. Smith casually mentions that it might be due to a head-on collision they had about a month ago but really, it’s just a little bump, he didn’t think anything would go wrong. At the end of the whole ordeal they ask Michael if he’d mind fixing it for them. They’re willing to pay him for the parts and double what he’d usually get. After a minute Michael accepts which gets him delighted looks from both men. 

“When do you want it by, I’ve got-“ Michael starts, but he’s quickly interrupted. “Whenever! Whenever, seriously, no rush, we won’t even bother you about it. Seriously.” Smith promises. Michael wants to be suspicious of how quick he was to promise no interruptions and no time constraints but he figures it’s just eagerness. If the car is as valuable as they claim it’s likely they want to keep it as a collector’s thing. So Michael shrugs, explaining that he’s got plenty of time, all they need to do is leave him with the car and the manual if they still have it.

It’s only after Smith and DeWitt leave that he wonders if he’s seen them before. Los Santos is huge and Michael had only recently started to venture out from his known territory, which consisted of the apartment-to-garage route and the immediate block or two around his apartment complex. He decides it’s just a fluke and settles in to work on their car, prioritizing it over the others. It’d be easier on him if he got a little bit done every day.  
\------

Michael had been working on the Smith-DeWitt car for three days by the time he finally gets to the interior. There was so much to be done about the outside that he hadn’t bothered to even think about it until now. 

The inside isn’t dirty so much as it’s just.. kind of destroyed? There’s chunks of upholstery here and there like an animal went to town on the seats. Michael’s cleaning the back out, essentially gutting it when he finds the cause.

Little wrinkled exit holes. 

At first Michael isn’t sure that’s what they are. His experience with guns was limited, his experience with the wounds they cause only slightly less limited. Once or twice Ron’s asked him to work on someone and they’re wounded before Michael even gets around to them. The biggest wound he saw came from a .38, or so he was told. That one had been a thief, they’d stolen from Ron multiple times and dimed him out to Ramsey. They hadn’t lived long once Michael got his hands on them.

As he cleans around the holes Michael wonders who Smith and DeWitt could really be. They don’t match the description of anybody he knows to be ‘dangerous’. Truth be told Michael isn’t in the loop for much of that- Ron involves him as little as possible. It’s less out of wanting to preserve his innocence and more out of not wanting to deal with another potential loose end.  
Michael decides, then, that he’ll keep his mouth shut. If Ron didn’t know already there’s no need to tell him now. He doesn’t know who Smith and DeWitt are but hopefully this will work out in his favor. It won’t be hard to fix the wounds in the metal and order new seats for the car. There’s very few marks on the outside now that Michael has gone over all of it and no bullet holes- which means if Michael is careful he doesn’t need to share what he’s found with anyone else.

He finishes his day’s work and spends a minute or two stretching out his sore limbs by the car. He’s been working in this garage for a long while now and he’s still no more used to the work than he was when he started. 

Today was good, though- interesting. Michael feels like he’s finally breaking the routine he’d fallen into and that in itself is a relief. Like sitting still too long, routines make Michael antsy. This puts a wrench in all of it, though, and Michael is almost a little excited to see where it leads.

\------

Los Santos may be a shithole but Michael has adopted it into his heart as _his_. He’d never felt truly at home in Jersey but he feels it here, a sense of belonging. Maybe it’s not Hollywood but it’s just as good and way more interesting.

Lately he’s made a personal effort to start acting like more of an adult. It was fun living off shitty food he got at the corner store before when he was fresh from Jersey but now it's just starting to make him sick all the time. He also can’t put on much muscle living off instant noodles and Ice-e-pops and as masculine as he already seems he knows it’s not going to be enough for long. He doesn’t want to look like a prepubescent boy forever, it eats at his confidence similar to how water erodes at stone. 

He’s on his way home from the grocery store, fabric bags slung over both arms and one over his shoulder, when he hears something a few streets down. Whoever it is, they’re crowing something fierce about some big scam they pulled the other day. Michael tunes in as best he can while he keeps a steady pace, and he can’t make much out, but what he does decipher is someone just crossed the fakes. Nothing big, at least not from what he can hear but it’s going to be a big enough deal that someone dared to _try_.

Michael makes it back to his apartment without much trouble. He puts the groceries away, kicking the fridge a little more violently than needed to make sure it stayed closed. He’s not really hungry enough to want to eat but he plucks himself a soft peach from the counter anyway, taking his jacket and shoes up with him to the roof. His apartment is on the top floor and via a little service closet down the hall he gets free roof access. Michael is certain this isn’t something he’s supposed to do but he also knows he doesn’t care for shit. 

Once he’s up there he feels a little better. He remembers the boasting he heard earlier and shares the tiniest grin with himself- he’d hate to be whoever that was. It’s weird to think about, but if there’s one thing Michael knows is more certain than rain and summer heat it’s that the fakes don’t let anybody get away with making them look bad. Michael doesn’t know if it’s because they just have no tolerance for bullshit or if it goes deeper than that but he also finds, after a moment, that he doesn’t care. It’s something he can respect. They took the city and refuse to give it the wiggle room to knock them back and that takes _effort_.

Michael sits in the ratty patio chair that’s been up on the roof _most likely_ since before he was even born and fishes his pack of smokes from his jacket. The little package is perhaps his greatest accomplishment, a final fuck-you to his past. Even with no parents to rebel against Michael still enjoys the knowledge that if they knew what their son did with his paychecks they’d probably have a heart attack on the spot. 

He holds one with his lips and lights it with the hand not holding his peach, looking out over the city- or at least what he can see of it from the outskirts. The smoke doesn’t burn him anymore and it settles like an old friend in his chest. He alternates between smoking and eating, taking juicy bites out of the fresh peach until it’s just a sticky core. As his smoke dwindles down to nothing, Michael stands from his patio chair and careens his arm back, hurling the pit as far as he can. He watches it fly, disappearing between buildings into a street far below. Idly, Michael wonders if he hit anyone with it and then how bad it might hurt, to be hit by a falling peach pit. 

He finishes his smoke, flicking the filter over the edge of the roof. The sun has dipped far below the city by the time he starts his descent back to his apartment and now that he’s done his nightly ritual Michael can feel his bones sticking to each other. He’s tired and finally aware of it and the feeling is kind of welcome. It’s nice to feel like you’ve accomplished something good, to feel the exhaustion in your body and know it’s well deserved.

\------ 

It’s nearly a month of hard work later by the time Michael finishes working on the Smith-DeWitt car. He’s got callouses on his callouses and some lost brain cells from breathing in the exterior paint for hours a day but he’s almost giddy with the knowledge that he’s _done_. This also means he gets to see the strange men when they come for their car again.  
Michael wonders if they’ll ask about the bullet holes. He has no idea what he’ll say but he hopes they’ll ask regardless.

Ron gets a hold of them and with some eaves dropping Michael learns that they’ll be in that afternoon. It kind of sucks, having to wait for what feels like forever, but Michael figures it’s worth it. He doubts he’ll be asked to work on any more cars that day seeing as he’s put almost all his time into this one while still somehow completing his other projects.

Michael passes his time with more ease than he anticipated. He only gets called into the garage a few times, choosing to sit outside on a stack of tires and smoke, reading old yellowing magazines without really caring what they say. His feet swing idly, the laces of his boots tapping softly against the hot rubber of the tires. This is how Michael spends several hours, out in the hot early fall sun. If he concentrates enough he can almost feel the sun baking the freckles into his skin.

By the time afternoon rolls around Michael has almost forgotten about Smith and DeWitt. He’s off the tires, standing out by the junk part pile with a cigarette burning in one hand when they roll up in what Michael thinks is an old Pontiac. The car is dusty and well-used, rust around where the tires are set and up around the trunk of the car. For some reason it throws him off, the fact that these two strangers who showed up with a car easily twice the worth of a decent condo would return in a shitty beater car. 

His eagerness to see them again forces him to stop mulling it over, though. Michael doesn’t bother extinguishing his cigarette as he tromps over, boots heavy and loose on his feet. He’s there just as Smith and DeWitt climb out of the car and to his surprise they look like they’ve come from something far more formal than they had come from before. Smith is in a suit that looks like it’s been through a technicolor filter a few thousand times but Michael has almost began to consider it fitting of the man. DeWitt makes a far more intimidating impression, however. His suit has clearly been tailored specifically for his figure, cutting his physique into shapes like stained glass. It’s a drastic change from the dad jeans and worn shirt Michael had met him in.

He meets them halfway to the garage, greeting them both with the hand not holding his cigarette. Smith eagerly shakes his hand but DeWitt seems hesitant to do the same and Michael wonders if he’s got something against smokes. Michael tells them idly about the work he’s done, taking them to their car which sits at the back of the garage where it’s safest. “I replaced a bunch of shit in the engine, mostly belts and moving bits an’ all.” He explains, walking around toward one of the front doors to pull it open and gesture at the interior. “The seats were a pain in the asshole to order, had to fight with some dick about leather color and dumb stuff like that. The base for the floor is new, too,” he mentions idly, throwing a purposeful glance at the two men. As Michael walks around the car towards the back where there had been bad rusting, he sees them exchange a glance- though what it means, he has no idea. Smith has sunglasses on and DeWitt makes a motion with his hands that Michael doesn’t know the meaning of. “But other than that stuff there wasn’t a lot I had to order. Most of the work was done with stuff we just had around.” He finishes. Smith grins at DeWitt and he gets the expression returned. There’s a moment where Michael is smoking, looking at the car but not really thinking of much and then suddenly there’s something being nudged against his shoulder.

Michael refocuses his eyes to find DeWitt has two fat wads of cash pressed against Michael’s arm. He looks expectant, so does Smith and for a long moment Michael doesn’t know what to do. He’s never seen that much money in his entire life, not that he’s lived very long but _still_. He hesitantly takes the money with the hand not holding the butt of his cigarette and just. Stands with it for a moment. Eventually he gathers the braincells to respond.

“I-“ he starts eloquently, “Thanks. I mean, are you sure you don’t- did you make sure this is as much as you owe me? Not that- that I think you’re skimming me I just-“ he stammers, waving his hands around as he struggles to come up with the words.  
Smith and DeWitt both laugh, not in an unkind way either. DeWitt more accurately huffs, soft little puffs with shaking shoulders while Smith’s laughter bubbles out of him sharply. Michael can feel his ears turning red under his hair and he knows it’s going to spread down along his jaw and across his face if they keep it up. They don’t, thankfully, but what follows is potentially much worse than a little more embarrassment.

“You cleaned up a piece of shit car with bits of actual junk, dude, I think you earned the cash.” Smith promises. DeWitt makes another motion with his hands and Smith nods along with it. Michael just stares at them dumbfounded for another moment longer before he shrugs. “Just doing my job, I guess. Thanks, though.” He tacks on, knowing everything he did wasn’t necessarily worth _this_ much. Michael makes sure the garage is clear so DeWitt and Smith can back the car out, almost reluctantly handing over the keys. The two men haven’t answered any of Michael’s self-asked questions but he thinks maybe that’s more interesting than if they had. As they split up between their two cars and exit the garage lot Michael wonders distantly if he’ll be seeing them again anytime soon. He has another cigarette outside on the tire stacks before he’s called into the shop office for a minute or two to go over a back room job Ron wants him to do later that week. It all feels so normal, routine- Michael wonders why his chest feels like there’s something missing now of all times.  
\------

It’s later that week on a lazy Friday that Michael sees the fruits of his estimations on the news.  
He’s sitting in the garage but it’s mostly empty, most of the guys out or shirking their duties. He’s avoiding his own responsibilities too but they’re minimal- a rusted motorcycle one of the guys wants him to take a look at and a few cars with blown out tires. 

There’s a TV the size of a dinnerplate across from where he’s perched on a shop bench and it’s always had the news on it. Michael had never paid it much attention but he certainly does now. There’s a live report happening about a series of explosions and burnings, all of them started or spread to buildings revealed to be used by The Lost, though nobody can determine what they were using it for. 

Some are pointing fingers at drug or human trafficking, others are claiming they were safehouses. All of that information goes in one ear and out the other as Michael watches the reporter lean to listen to something someone off frame tells them. She’s standing in front of what looks like the still-smoldering remains of one of the buildings while Michael can see smoke off in the distance from something still burning. When she comes back her face looks grim. Michael scrambles to turn the volume up as loud as it’s willing to go.

“We’ve just been informed that somebody has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the destruction of these and surrounding buildings.” She begins, gesturing behind her at the rubble. “It seems the Fake-AH are once again the cause of anarchy in our city.” The feed cuts to what has to be assumed is a heli-cam. There’s little to no sound other than the reporter’s voiceover, but down on the ground are six people, all of them in possession of various weapons. 

 

Michael isn’t shocked to learn it’s the fakes. What makes ice begin to pool in his stomach is as the camera zooms in towards the group, Michael spots a familiar technicolor tuxedo. It’s Smith, and beside him is someone Michael is certain is _the_ Vagabond. 

Michael sits back down slowly, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket to put one between his lips and light it with a steady hand. After a moment of thinking Michael makes the assumption that Smith must be Dooley. _The_ Dooley, Ramsey’s ace-up-the-sleeve.  
What throws him for a temporary loop is the idea that he’d spent extended periods of time around this man, worked for him and taken money from him and nothing had come of it but a fat paycheck. Which leads Michael to his next idea: Ramsey had essentially sent him as a test, or maybe surveillance but whatever the reason Ramsey knew who he was for sure now. He knew his name, he knew where he worked. 

And if the burning buildings and the boasting thug in the street from a few days ago could be assumed to be connected, Ramsey truly does not fuck around. Michael takes a heavy drag from his cigarette and holds it until his heart is hammering and he’s sure if he stood he’d fall right back down.

After a moment of careful, careful self examination and a lot of internal argument he finds himself, for the first time since fleeing Jersey, hoping he’s impressed someone. As Michael watches the Fakes unleash chaos on the TV screen, he realizes the peculiar feeling of longing in his chest rests beyond the screen- where the Vagabond fires another rocket into the already burning building and Michael can see Dooley holler and grin, where Michael can see the fire lick up the structure and distantly he wonders (not for the first time) why he hadn’t run from home sooner, if it meant feeling like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the biggest fic I've ever written and I'm not even done with it. How'd you like my not-quite-a plot twist? 
> 
> As always, please please if you wanna leave me comments or talk to me, do it! I love hearing from people. If you have any ideas or suggestions you can totally leave them here or send me a message on tumblr! (macheenima.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> thanks for reading :^) !!!


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